Since 1992, Magyar Suzuki Rt. (Suzuki's branch in Esztergom, Hungary) has manufactured more than 500,000 cars and has been the market leader in Hungary's new car market for six years. The firm produces a quarter of all Suzuki automobiles sold in Western Europe, and exports more than 50,000 cars each year. Magyar Suzuki produces 1200 cars a day (approximately one every 90 seconds) so assembly line interruptions, even for a few minutes, can be extremely expensive.

The company manufactured a total of 170,000 cars in 2006, but has plans to boost output to 300,000 units by 2008. Instead of just adding new floor space to their factory, Suzuki has also sought ways to improve the manufacturing process and upgrade the facilities at the plant to increase production. Recently, Magyar Suzuki Rt. upgraded the system in its assembly shop and paint shop. Since automobile plants must maintain a very precise manufacturing process, the factory needs to use a management system that is both reliable and redundant to increase productivity without sacrificing safety. To accomplish this task, Magyar Suzuki sought help from KVL COMP Ltd. to develop an electronic management system. The system tracks each car as it moves along the assembly line, and is tied in with the plant's Andon system, Pokayoke limits, torque wrenches, and the collection system for event messages sent from equipment in the assembly area to the painting area.

System Description
Currently, the Magyar Suzuki's assembly plant has 9 sub-assembly stations. Each assembly station uses a master PLC to control equipment used in the assembly process at the station. The master PLCs use fiber optic Ethernet to communicate with each other and with the data server. Communications with the Pokayoke, Andon systems, and other devices run through a Fieldbus network, such as DeviceNET, CLK, or twisted pair copper Ethernet network.

As each car enters the assembly line, the car's VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) is read from an RFID tag. The Master PLC exchanges data with the data server, and receives all the information it needs about the car through the Ethernet LAN. The data for the car is then delivered to line equipment for operation references, such as torque and pick up systems, through the Fieldbus network. During the operation, the devices at the station send event messages back to the master PLC, which forwards the message to the data server for storage and further analysis.

The assembly plant uses a dual-redundant concept for the network of assembly lines that are part of mission-critical applications. The main communication network connecting the assembly stations and paint stations uses a redundant ring topology formed by Moxa's EDS-408A-MM-SC managed switches. If any of the cable connections are disconnected, the network will automatically return to normal in less than 0.3 seconds, and the Moxa EDS-408A-MM-SC switch sends an error message to notify the administrator. In addition, each master PLC is connected to two separate EDS-408A-MM-SC switches to provide device redundancy.

The Ethernet network formed by the EDS-408A-MM-SC switches turns the assembly lines into an integrated, complete system that synchronizes the operating process among the assembly plant, paint shop, and data servers. Magyar Suzuki is even considering the possibility of making the entire system more mobile by using Moxa's wireless solutions. “With Moxa's products we can increase the speed of the Ethernet communication. Over the last year, Moxa's devices have made the communication better and easier,” said Zsolt Tüske, who is one of the engineers at Magyar Suzuki. Rt. “This is extremely important for us, since we can make the equipment mobile, allowing us to move equipment around as frequently as we like.”

Project Implementation
EDS-408A: 8 port entry-level managed Ethernet switches

Benefits

• Moxa's Turbo Ring provides perfect redundancy with a fast recovery time under 300 ms, making the network for the automobile assembly lines more reliable. NOTE: Recent Turbo Ring upgrades provide the EDS-500A & EDS-400A series with a 20 ms recovery time at 250-switch load.
• The multi mode fiber supported by the EDS-408AMM-SC provides the automobile plant with long-haul transmission and immunity to electronic interference.
• The EDS-408A's user-friendly, web-based configurator makes it easy for users to configure network settings.
• Sending event warnings by email provides a great way to monitor the network in real-time.
• Moxa's managed Ethernet switches support a fast booting time to enhance the manufacturing efficiency of the assembly lines.

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